


Unleashed

by Hours_Gone_By



Series: AU Yeah AUgust 2020 [20]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers Generation One, Transformers – All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe – Demons, Alternate Universe – Magic, Alternate Universe – Supernatural Elements, Community: spook_me, Demonic Possession, Gen, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Other, Possession, Spies & Secret Agents, Supernatural Elements, The Fall of Praxus, Violence, informants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27211951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By
Summary: Jazz had been to Praxus lots of times, sometimes on a hunt of his own, sometimes backing up the city-state's own magic-enabled Enforcers. He'd never had to slip through Decepticon blockades to do it before, though. They were pretty comprehensive, too, which gave Jazz a nasty feeling in the bottom of his spark chamber. The Cons weren't just here to put the city on edge; they were here to keep people in. They were gearing up for a siege. Praxus was going to have to make up its mind, and damn soon, too.
Relationships: Jazz & Ricochet
Series: AU Yeah AUgust 2020 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860307
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26
Collections: Spook Me Ficathon, Spook Me Ficathon 2020





	Unleashed

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2020 Spook Me fic challenge on [Dreamwidth](https://spook-me.dreamwidth.org). My photo prompts were:  
> <https://images54.fotki.com/v101/photos/6/3814576/16181654/liluraldaywalker_jpg1510623551-vi.jpg>  
> <https://images54.fotki.com/v556/photos/6/3814576/16181654/tarksteveachange_jpg1466802196-vi.jpg>
> 
> Used for AU Yeah AUgust 2020 Day 22.

Jazz had had a reputation for being skilled and sneaky even before the most recent Cybertronian civil war had broken out. Like Mirage, Bumblebee, and Hound, he'd been one of the best Hunters the Senate had. Probably there was an official count somewhere of all the supernatural, and otherwise, he'd taken out over the vorn. Jazz himself had stopped counting a long, long time ago. Before the war had broken out, it'd actually been getting kind of quiet, and Jazz had idly been thinking of maybe taking a bit of a vacation. Perhaps even undoing his bindings and retiring.

Ricochet hadn't liked that idea. " _I'm_ not ready to retire!" he'd complained. "I still want to hunt!"

"You could always find someone else to hunt with," Jazz had pointed out.

"Who else am I going to find that I can hunt with as well as you, Jazz?"

Jazz had replied that if he retired, Ricochet was just going to have to go looking. Ricochet had sulked for a bit, but then the war broke out. Jazz and his team hadn't had to make many changes to go from being Special Operatives for the Senate to being Special Operations for the Autobots. Not only did the 'Cons call up familiars and other critters, but they also weren't too picky about closing their casting circles. Stuff that had been banished, sealed off by the Patterners' long-ago magics, started to sneak back through the cracks they left.

Jazz worried that his start would get overwhelmed, especially before they could recruit and train anyone else. He worried one of them – including him – would get tired enough to get killed. Ricochet, on the other hand, was thrilled over getting to hunt stuff that should have been gone long ago.

"I'm a little worried about how happy Rico is with all this," Jazz confided to Mirage one night when Ricochet shouldn't have been able to hear. "More than a little worried that he might wind up going over the top, and I won't be able to hold him back."

Mirage just shook his head, though. "I wouldn't worry. You've always had excellent control, and you've never lost it in the field, never missed a renewal. He'll keep following your instructions."

"Yeah, I know, but – " Jazz sighed and looked down into his energon. "First time for everything, right?"

"No," Mirage said firmly. "Not for everything."

"Do you really believe that?"

"If I didn't – if _you_ didn't," Mirage knew him way too well, "we'd have lost Cybertron to the darkness long ago."

"I suppose." Jazz looked up again. "Hey, 'Raj? You ever question some of the things we've done – do – to keep it in the light?"

"No, I don't, and neither should you. You'll lose focus if you don't get enough recharge," Mirage reminded him, "and you know what can happen then."

"Oh yeah." Jazz had come close a couple of times when he'd been much younger, but he'd never completely lost it. Ricochet had thought it was funny, of course. "Speaking of which, I gotta go get some sleep. Early day tomorrow. We're shipping out to Praxus, doing some recon. I got word from a contact there that I should go take a look."

"I thought Praxus was still Neutral."

"Yeah, they are, and they're not getting convinced by either Bots or Cons to change sides."

Mirage's optics went flinty. "And we know all too well what Megatron does to cities he's told he can't have."

"Yeah," Jazz said, thinking of his hometown's shipyards, now turning out warships for the Decepticons, whether the inhabitants liked it or not. About the harbour mouth, clogged with the gray corpses of protestors or those who tried to flee as or by ship. "I know."

* * *

Jazz took Mirage's advice and went home to get some rest. Ricochet was quiet while Jazz did the cleansing ritual in his quarters' entryway, but once Jazz was done, there was no muting him.

"You're more worried than you want to admit about losing control, aren't you?"

"You know why I can't." Jazz looked in the mirror that hung just outside the entryway, double-checking that nothing had followed him home and not been cleared by the ritual he'd just performed. Nothing unexpected hanging out around or behind him. His gaze met Ricochet's red visor

Ricochet smirked. "Better than anyone."

* * *

Jazz had been to Praxus lots of times, sometimes on a hunt of his own, sometimes backing up the city-state's own magic-enabled Enforcers. He'd never had to slip through Decepticon blockades to do it before, though. They were pretty comprehensive, too, which gave Jazz a nasty feeling in the bottom of his spark chamber. The Cons weren't just here to put the city on edge; they were here to keep people in. They were gearing up for a siege. Praxus was going to have to make up its mind, and damn soon, too.

Maybe literally damned, depending on what they did to defend themselves. Jazz had seen how desperate people could get, what they'd call up in the name of staying safe. What they'd agree to.

' _It doesn't always work out badly_ ,' Ricochet said, with a little more glee than Jazz felt was appropriate for the situation, given that they were sneaking through a Decepticon camp. ' _You know that_.'

' _I know that sometimes, things are necessary even if they're not the best idea_.'

' _You're going to hurt my feelings_.'

If they hadn't been where they were, Jazz would have snorted out loud. As it was, he focused on wiring the charges for remote detonation. Just in case. ' _There might be a first time for everything, but not that._ '

' _You know, I could do this faster._ '

' _Explosives are one place where you don't want to sacrifice caution for speed._ ' Jazz did hurry things up a little, though. Ricochet got impatient sometimes, and the last thing Jazz needed right now was to struggle to keep him under control. ' _Don't worry. If I need your skills, I'll let you off the leash._ '

Ricochet chuckled but didn't say anything else. Jazz finished with his explosives, slipped through the Decepticon encampment and made it across the border of Praxus. Once he got in, it was pretty smooth sailing. Sure, you had to have your RFID beacon always broadcasting so any passing Enforcers could tell citizens from not, but Jazz knew how to rig up counterfeit ones that'd fool Primus himself. There was a curfew too, but a pretty late one and the mission lasted a few solar-cycles. Plenty of time to gather intel.

Jazz checked into one of the hotels that were still running, which had plenty of vacancies, set up the room, and headed down to the bar.

"Hello there," a smooth voice purred into his audial, once he'd been warming a bar stool for a half a joor. "All alone tonight, handsome? I bet you'd love it if I bought you a drink."

Jazz turned his head and gave Smokescreen an interested smile in return. "I suppose I'd be the one to lose if I said 'no'?"

"Mm, I think we'd both lose if that happened."

Jazz let his smile broaden, turn inviting. "Well, I do hate to lose."

Smokescreen smirked and made optic contact with the bartender. "A Grand Uprising for me and another of whatever my friend here's drinking, please."

Visco was Jazz's particular poison, and after they'd flirted through two more of those, he asked Smokescreen to go upstairs with him. Smokescreen agreed, and soon they were upstairs in the privacy of the hotel room Jazz had rented. Occult energy fizzled off Smokescreen's armour-plating when he walked across the circle Jazz had drawn on the floor earlier. It wasn't any kind of spell or possession, though, just the free-floating stuff you picked up walking around anywhere with lots of enchantments. Praxus was using plenty of magic for defence, so Jazz was just surprised Smokescreen hadn't built more up on his superstructure.

Jazz did a sweep for bugs, physical and otherwise, while Smokescreen got himself settled on one of the chairs.

"Right, we're all good," Jazz said when he finished. "What've you got for me, Smokescreen?"

Smokescreen stopped looking and acting flirtatious once Jazz let him know they were clear. "A lot, and not a lot that's good, I'm afraid."

"Yeah, well," Jazz took a chair of his own. "Pretty much the state of the planet these days, ain't it?"

"Sadly true," Smokescreen agreed. "But Praxus' Council doesn't see it that way. They're planning a major working, called in all the mages from across the State of Praxus, put out the word for anyone else with a magical talent to report in."

Well, wasn't that interesting? Jazz had his suspicions as to why, but he wanted to hear it from Smokescreen. "What do you think's going on?"

"I think they're planning to use magic to dome the city. It will be a massive use of magic, but it's been done before."

Yeah, Jazz knew his military occult history, and he knew Praxus had domed itself for defence in Ages past. You could still see the old walls, hics inside the current city limits, etched with the symbols they'd used back then to ground the dome to Cybertron. Praxus had been a lot smaller, though, not much more than a border outpost protecting its now-eclipsed neighbour, Petrex. It hadn't had the tunnels running under it then, either, or an army full up with heavy work units camped just outside, either. Plus, if the rumours about Shockwave calling up one of the great, mythical Drillers were true, a dome wasn't going to help. Jazz was going to have to do a lot more investigating.

"Got anyone who can get me any more info on that?" Jazz asked. A working that big was going to be a significant risk, and not just for Praxus. There were things you had to call up to manage it, and while they weren't necessarily malignant, they weren't angelic either. It could go really badly if you didn't close the circle or do the dismissal right or if someone sabotaged it. There were definitely mages among the Decepticons who could manage it if they got wind of it in time. Even if Praxus survived a broken working of that size, there'd be nasty fallout and not just for Praxus.

Smokescreen shook his head. "Sorry, Jazz. Everything about this is locked down tight. I've only got what I do because the call was public and because I know an aide whose a little loose-lipped when he's, ah, sufficiently relaxed, shall we say?"

"Gotcha." Jazz thought for a moment. "What's your take on everything that's going on?"

"It's going to go bad, Jazz," Smokescreen said, shaking his head. "Really bad. I – I might not be able to get you any more intel. I'm planning on leaving the city, just got to find an excuse." Clearly trying to lighten the mood, Smokescreen cocked a playful optic ridge at Jazz. "Surprise elopement?"

Ricochet finally spoke up. "Hey, we could have worse offers."

He was ignored. Jazz just gave a laugh and shook his head.

"Sorry, mech, can't even pretend to get tied down like that."

"Little fun while I'm here, then?"

Jazz shook his head again. "Nope, sorry."

Smokescreen shrugged. "Ah, well. Can't win every time. Game of cards, then, to pass the time?"

That Jazz could be up for, though Ricochet scoffed at it as boring. Well, he could just entertain himself. They'd made it obvious that Smokescreen coming up here for a frag, and they had to keep the pretense up. That meant hanging out for a joor or two at least, but Jazz could think of worse company.

* * *

Jazz spent the rest of his time in Praxus trying to prise out details of whatever the local government had planned. He couldn't get near it in person, and even the sprites he called up to spy for him couldn't get past the wards around the Thaumaturgical Ministry's buildings. The whole thing was sealed up tighter than a Temple priest's ports. Jazz finally had to give up and admit that he would go back to Iacon with not much more intel than he'd come to Praxus with.

"I could get more if you'd let me do this my way," Ricochet suggested.

"No." Jazz refused flatly. "We can't afford to leave any trace that we were here, and you're not exactly subtle."

Ricochet, who had been bored for their entire time in Praxus, growled. "You're gonna have to let me off the leash sometime, Jazz."

Yeah, Jazz knew that. He didn't like doing it, but there were times where letting Ricochet take charge was necessary. He'd done it before, and he was going to have to pay the price and do it again eventually.

"Not yet. Not yet," Jazz repeated, just as stubbornly determined as Ricochet and the other subsided. A little bit, anyway.

Jazz hadn't registered at any of the checkpoints surrounding the city on his way in, so he couldn't leave on any of the transports that were still running. Everyone who left was being cross-referenced against citizens, and everyone who'd entered and that'd give the game away. Instead, he slipped out the same way he'd come in, back through the Decepticon camp. His explosives hadn't been found, but there had been changes, and they weren't changes Jazz liked. Gun emplacements had been added, and there were way more Decepticons around than there had been. Seekers flew lazy patterns overhead, not scouting or running drills, maybe just making a show of themselves for intimidation. Jazz almost wanted to set off the charges just on principle, but they wouldn't take everyone out, and he couldn't risk the survivors blaming Praxus and retaliating. Jazz was sure that Praxus would be hit sooner or later, but he didn't want to be the one to hurry it up, especially if they were probably still trying to get their defences together.

The first wash of occult energies struck just beyond the border of the Decepticon encampment. Jazz froze, realized, and swore. Praxus was doing something major, ready or not, and he had no doubt that it would set the Decepticons off. A cacophony of transformation cogs engaging and thrusters roaring came on the heels of this realization. Jazz couldn't do anything about the Seekers, but the ground-based units would still be getting organized. Thanks to Jazz's little side-project on the way in, though, the 'Cons weren't the only thing that could be set off.

"They'll probably come looking," Ricochet said, sounding happy about it, as Jazz took cover and subspaced the remote detonator. "You'll have to let me fight."

"Yeah." Jazz detonated the explosives, and a chain of fire wove its way through the Decepticon forces. He sent a focused quick-burst transmission to the nearest Autobase, calling for reinforcements. "But we're not waiting for them to come to us."

Ricochet laughed in the back of his mind, hungrily anticipating mayhem and shed fuel.

Ricochet's delight hit with as much force as any of the explosives, arcane energies lacing throughout Jazz's structure in preparation. Jazz could feel Ricochet tugging at the bindings that had been wound around them both so long ago, eager to be let free, as he darted back across the border of the camp. His approach went almost unnoticed amongst the chaos of battle and the aftermath of sabotage. Almost, but not entirely. A unit of 'Cons noticed him, had a commander smart enough to realize one mech rushing them had to have something extra in his 'space, and sent ground units to intercept him. They wouldn't be enough, not once Ricochet hit.

"Yes!" Ricochet hissed at the sight, almost clawing for control, eager for battle. "Let me free. Let _me_ fight, Jazz!"

Jazz got an acknowledgement of incoming reinforcements, and that was all he'd needed to hear. "You got it."

Jazz let the demon take over and flung himself into the crowd.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:  
> 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> Author Responses: This author replies to comments. If you don't want a reply for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with "whisper," and I will appreciate it but not respond.


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